Caught Between a Hoop and a Hard Place
Unlocking my next stage of data analysis and vertical jump training
Leveling Up
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! CAMERON BUILDS ACTUAL FUNCTIONING PYTHON WEB SCRAPER! BABIES PROPHESY RAPTURE IN AFTERMATH! Okay…that last sentence of the headline was hyperbole, but the rest is true. We now have a fully functioning web scraper for NCAA D1 Men’s basketball data! (**crowd rises for a standing ovation**)
(Cameron steps to podium to accept a trophy with the title “World’s Okay-est Data Scientist” inscribed upon it.)
“I would like to take this moment to thank my Mom for giving me life and half of the genetics necessary to win this award today. I couldn’t have done this without you Mom!” (Happy Mother’s Day!)
If you didn’t read last week’s post on data collection- I have been writing a Python web scraper to get NCAA D1 Men’s Basketball data off the internet. As of now, it is fully functioning and free of 429 errors! (No more messages saying I am making too many requests in a short period of time.)
Project Lock Down the Fort
Now that we have leveled up our data collection game, we will be moving on to our next step in this data analysis journey- importing that data into a database! AKA Project Lock Down the Fort!
The thing about data is- it needs somewhere to live. Without a home “base” (as you may like to call it) I would be running the web scraper over and over again every time I wanted to analyze the data.
For all of the normal human beings out there, a database is at its core just a collection of data. In my case it is names of teams, the names of players on those teams, the heights of each player, etc. However, there are a bunch of different technologies that have been built in order to manage and organize that data.
I will likely do some experimentation with a technology called SQLite that I already have (when you download Python, you download everything you need to use SQLite as well). I may switch technologies in the near future but I want to get going ASAP.
About face! Forward march! Let’s get these troops into base!
Training Update
Doing a “height check” is a common thing for jumpers and dunkers. Basically, you run and jump while trying to get your head up as high as possible in comparison to some standard.
For dunkers that standard is the rim that has been hanging ten feet off the ground laughing at me my whole life.
The best dunkers in the world have height check jumps that look like this:
There’s nothing that says “I got bounce” like looking DOWN at the rim. For someone more “down to earth” (**reader rolls eyes**) like me, my height check from this past week was a new milestone:
For those who don’t have a microscope to zoom in at the molecular level- my head touched the net! Injuries notwithstanding, I am clearly making progress.
I also took some baseline measurements (something I could have done from the beginning of my training). With the help of one random teenager at the gym, I got these hopefully accurate measurements:
Height (with shoes): 5’ 10 1/4”
Standing reach: 7’ 5 1/4”
According to those measurements, to touch the rim I would need a 30 3/4” vertical jump (120” - 89 1/4” = 30 3/4”). Generally, you need to touch at least 6” above the rim to dunk. That sets my vertical jump goal at 36 3/4”. My shoulder injury has limited me from getting an accurate vertical jump measurement, but I will likely need to gain an additional 5” on my jump! Let’s get in the lab!
The Quad Factory
In one of my first posts I showed myself performing a half squat with 225 lbs. as seen here:
On the day of the video, I did 4 sets of 8 reps. Up to that time, I had never squatted more than about 250 lbs.
After squatting large volumes of 50-70% one rep max quantities over the past month, I was able to easily squat 30 reps of 225 lb. DEEP squats as you can see here:
For me, that felt mind blowing. Two months ago I felt like I was dying lifting 225 lbs. 32 times in a half squat. I just lifted that same amount in a deep squat 30 times! That’s after completing 20 reps at about 200 lbs.!
Eyes on the Target
I have my crosshairs squarely set on dunking and I really feel like I’m on the right track. Navigating my injuries has not been easy, but I’m excited for the weeks to come!
Happy jumping! Have a great week!